


Drawn to You

by jellybeanforest



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Tattoos, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brief Mentions of Underage Tony Stark trying to lose his virginity at MIT, Drunk Sex, Getting Together, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Past Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Remix, Sort Of, Soulmarks, They don't know they're soulmates when they get together, Underage Drinking, Virgin Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:55:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22564351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellybeanforest/pseuds/jellybeanforest
Summary: In a world where what one writes on one’s own skin appears on their soulmate’s body in exactly the same place until it’s washed off or fades, no one has ever responded to Steve’s questions written in pen.Who are you?Where are you?And once, out of sheer desperation: Wer bist du?He has tried writing up and down both arms then across his stomach in pictograms when he reckons that perhaps his soulmate is a double amputee and illiterate, but nothing. No response. He is uncertain why he is so surprised. Everything else about Steve is broken, so why not his soul?But when he points the Valkyrie downwards to crash into the deep, knowing he is about to die, he spares a few precious seconds to scribble one last message to his possibly-nonexistent, potentially-blind soulmate.Twenty-five years later, Tony Stark is born with a single phrase on his left forearm written in messy old-fashioned script. And as he grows up, the words never change:“I love you”It is both a blessing and a curse.Remix of “the words written on our skin” by Cathalinaheart. For the 2020 Cap-IronMan Remix Madness.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 140
Kudos: 1469
Collections: 2020 Captain America/Iron Man Remix Madness, Avengers Collection





	1. Who are you?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cathalinaheart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cathalinaheart/gifts).
  * Inspired by [the words written on our skin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21808816) by [Cathalinaheart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cathalinaheart/pseuds/Cathalinaheart). 
  * In response to a prompt by [Cathalinaheart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cathalinaheart/pseuds/Cathalinaheart) in the [2020_Cap_Ironman_Remix_Madness](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/2020_Cap_Ironman_Remix_Madness) collection. 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve Rogers despairs over not having a soulmate.

Technically speaking, not everyone is born with a soulmate.

One of the pair has to be born first with the second following sometime after. It could be a minute or it could be ten years, but eventually, two halves came into the world, and if they are lucky, they will meet the other before one of them dies.

Steve is beginning to think he is one of the unlucky ones.

When he had entered kindergarten, a little less than half his class had their marks, scribbles and letters and shapes, appearing and disappearing like ripples in the water with a minority receiving entire words drifting across their skin, usually first names to begin with – Betty, Tommy, Sarah, or Edith with too many horizontal lines for the E. By first grade, a full two-thirds had the marks with many receiving complete sentences, having secret conversations with their other half whispered through swipes of blotted fountain pen script across skin. And by fifth grade, everyone he knew wore long sleeves to hide their private conversations. All of them had had some indication that their soulmate had passed through the world, whether they were making plans to meet up when they were a little older or (rather tragically) had stopped writing completely. But at least the ones that stopped knew that they had had a soulmate at one point.

But little Stevie had never gotten so much as a dot, an errant line of text marring his skin. He had checked every inch of his body in the mirror (just in case his soulmate is a contortionist with a sense of humor), and he had written across his arm in turn.

Every. Single. Day.

_Who are you?_

_Where are you?_

And once, out of sheer desperation: _Wer bist du?_

He had tried writing up and down both arms then across his stomach in pictograms when he reckons that perhaps his soulmate is a double amputee _and_ illiterate, but nothing. No response. He is uncertain why he is so surprised. Everything else about Steve is broken, so why not his soul?

His friends had both gotten their marks: Arnie early and Bucky not too long ago. So, Stevie had fibbed and told everyone he had gotten his as well. His mother had been in tears at his announcement, so happy her little boy had someone – had turned out _normal_ – that she had even scrapped together some funds to buy new cloth to add sleeves to all his summer shirts. Arnie and Bucky had congratulated him but said little on the subject, neither boy ever being much inclined to talk about their soulmates. That was fine with Stevie, had been a relief, truth be told. He never much liked lying, but he liked pity even less. Unfortunately, the lie also meant that he had no one to confide in about his growing concern over his lack of a soulmate. Why did he never have so much as a tiny scribble when literally everyone else had gotten them? And what did that say about the state of his soul?

And so Steve continues to write into the void, hoping that one day, he will receive a long-awaited response. Something, anything, to let him know there was someone out there for him.

 _I am Steve Rogers. Who are you?_ He had written while sitting on the stoop of his tenement waiting for the others. His script is steady and even, flooding at the last dot. He waits a bit for it to dry. He has a while yet. Bucky had to share the bathroom on his floor with three sisters and the Andersens and Murphys who had seven girls between them, and Arnie was never on time.

A shadow falls over him, startling Steve, who quickly rolls down his shirt, smearing the ink already. He looks up and over his shoulder, his expression a touch guilty.

Arnie cocks his head to the side, regarding Steve with curiosity. “Was that…?” then his eyes widen in understanding. There is only one reason someone would write so rudimentary a question to their soulmate.

“It’s nothing; just forget it,” Steve mumbles, the shame of lying, of being exposed as someone broken, overwhelming him.

Arnie is quiet for a spell, then: “Some of the colored people… if they’re real dark, the black don’t show up too good, so you have to use a different pen,” he explains, rifling through his pockets in his pants then his jacket until he finally fishes out a silver fountain pen and hands it to Stevie. “It ain’t fair they have to buy a whole ‘nother pen just to write to their soulmates, but teachers don’t accept silver on schoolwork, even in Harlem, so…” he shrugs.

There’s only one reason Arnie would know all that or have such a pen on his person. “What’s her name?”

Arnie shuffles his feet, not quite looking at Steve when he finally replies, “…Mikey.”

Steve’s eyes widen. “Oh,” he doesn’t really know how to respond to that, but Arnie waits for judgment, the tension clear in the set of his shoulders. So Steve simply asks, “Does he use black ink to write to you?”

Arnie slouches in relief at his friend’s easy acceptance. “Sometimes he uses his school pen, but lots of times, his Ma gets suspicious and then he writes silver for a while. It’s hard to read, but I can make it out okay. Mostly.”

“Does anybody know?”

“He does, and now you do, too, I suppose.” Arnie plops down on the stair above Steve. “You won’t tell nobody, right?”

“Course not, Arnie,” Steve promises, his tone earnest and genuine. “I’m really glad for you. So, he’s going to have your back no matter what? Life-long friends with a colored boy?”

It wasn’t unheard of that two fellas or two dames would turn out to be soulmates. A soulmate didn’t have to be romantic; they could be lifelong best friends, or at least that’s what Father O’Reilly had always said when asked about the subject.

But now Arnie’s face closes, his expression going unreadable. “Right,” he agrees, before suggesting, “Why don’t you try it. See what happens?”

Steve holds the pen tip over his left arm and takes a deep breath before writing, his hands shaky, _My name is Steve Rogers. What’s yours?_

Both he and Arnie wait, each second without a reply crushing the delicate hope within Steve. After five minutes, he drops his arm and hands the pen back to his friend.

“There’s someone out there for you, too, but maybe they’re just taking their sweet time getting born,” the boy tries to console him.

“Or they’re already dead.”

But Arnie shakes his head. “You can’t think like that, Stevie. It’ll happen for you.”

* * *

It doesn’t happen for him, and by the time of his mother’s death when Steve is eighteen, he about near gives up.

Not entirely, but he writes with less frequency than before with every subsequent failure confirming what he has always suspected: No one will ever want Steve Rogers. This here is simply proof of that very fact.

That doesn’t stop Bucky from trying. After graduation, Arnie had left for Harlem to room with his de facto best friend and soulmate, but Bucky had stayed in Brooklyn with Steve. His soulmate had stopped writing a couple years prior, but he had taken the loss in stride, dating women in the same boat not six months after. Grief is a funny thing, and Steve would never begrudge Bucky his ability to move on and be happy. It’s what he would want for his own soulmate… if he had had one and suffered an early – but not unforeseen, given his condition – death, that is. Bucky keeps encouraging Steve to make an effort, trying to set him up on various dates that go nowhere the minute they lay eyes on his frail, undersized body. The whole exercise is humiliating, and sometimes he wishes Bucky would just accept that without someone compelled to love him, Steve is simply going to die alone.

Steve sighs. “What did you tell her about me?”

“Only the good stuff,” Bucky replies, as he pushes Steve towards his date for the evening.

And that’s the problem. Bucky is never honest about Steve’s shortcomings, thinking that his glowing recommendation will somehow make up for what she can see with her own eyes. Blind dates are rarely actually blind, after all.

Then, war breaks out, and Steve endures an entirely new avenue of rejection. Even with rumors that the military is fast-tracking recruits without living soulmates, Steve gets rejected, time after time.

4F. Ineligible for service.

It appears that not even Uncle Sam wants him.

“I don’t see what the problem is,” newly-minted Sergeant James Barnes of the one-o-seventh had told him, arm draped around his shoulder. “You’re about to be the last eligible man in New York. You know, there’s three and a half million women here.”

Bucky doesn’t understand. The man fits in everywhere, with his handsome face and easy charm born of confidence and good health. Men like Bucky are laying down their lives for the greater good, and Steve has no right sitting back and taking the easy way out, comforting the widows left behind while their soulmates are buried en masse at graves along the Western front.

There must be a reason why Steve never had a soulmate, and perhaps it is this: military service, fighting for the greater good.

Unfortunately, every recruitment center from New York to New Jersey disagrees.

But Dr. Abraham Erskine gets it.

“I can offer you a chance.”

Steve accepts.

* * *

Every soldier is issued one black pen. Steve refuses his. He doesn’t have anyone waiting for him back home, much less a soulmate.

* * *

He undergoes Project Rebirth, and his body changes, growing broad and strong. There’s a woman – Peggy Carter – who likes him, had liked him even before he was injected with the supersoldier serum, he suspects.

She tells him her soulmate had died when she was a baby. She had been born with a message on her arm, a childish scribble that had faded shortly after her birth during a Zeppelin raid on British soil in the last year of the Great War. That was all she was granted: a few shapes and lines, not even a word, before her soulmate departed this world.

Steve can’t stop thinking about it.

* * *

Steve is put on the USO circuit, to entertain troops overseas, but they are a surly, downtrodden lot, interested only in his female backup dancers.

Tough crowd.

“They look like they’ve been through hell,” Steve tells Peggy backstage, putting aside his highly-relatable sketch of a circus monkey.

“These men more than most. Schmidt sent out a force to Azzano. Two hundred men went up against him and less than fifty returned. Your audience contained what was left of the one-o-seventh. The rest were killed or captured.”

“The one-o-seventh?” Steve asks, dread creeping up his spine.

He storms into the commanders’ tent to confront Colonel Phillips about Bucky’s unknown fate. There are no formal plans for a rescue mission, so (against orders) Steve mounts his own one-man army, convincing Peggy and Howard Stark to drop him over enemy territory. _Your friend is most likely dead,_ she had told him, but it does little to deter Steve. So in the end, he sneaks in, punches some Nazis, destroys a Hydra factory, and saves his best friend alongside his entire regiment.

* * *

In the wake of his success, the US Army allows Steve to assemble an elite team: the Howling Commandoes.

Colonel Phillips has only one requirement as to its membership: No living soulmates. It makes sense. The whole operation is classified, and the existence of a living soulmate would make it significantly more difficult to contain leaks.

“You ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?” He asks Bucky, the last of his picks to agree.

“Hell no,” Bucky declines, but then he says, “That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight. I’m following him.”

Before he leaves on his first mission, Peggy gives him a Biro pen, a new-fangled ballpoint that doesn’t flood at high altitudes and is quick-drying, can even write underwater.

“If you’re going to make a habit of jumping out of planes, Captain Rogers, you may be interested in one of these. The British government is issuing one to all members of the Royal Air Force.”

“I don’t have a soulmate,” Steve tells her, but he accepts the pen nonetheless, rolling the barrel in his palm.

Peggy smiles. “Write to me, then. Paper still exists, and I’d like to hear from you from time to time.”

Back in the barracks, Steve thinks of his missing soulmate, about the nature of love, and the possibility of happiness with someone else. He holds the pen to his left arm and writes, tentatively, “Hello. Are you there?”

He waits five minutes. No response, not so much as a scribble. His shoulders slump. He doesn’t know what he had expected, why he keeps doing this.

A freshly-showered Bucky chooses that time to interrupt his solitude, barging in through the door, toweling off his hair. Steve rolls his sleeve back down, but it’s too late.

“What have you got there?” he asks as Steve fumbles for an explanation. “I thought… didn’t your…” Bucky can’t quite finish the sentiment, but the question is clear: _Didn’t Steve’s soulmate pass away years ago?_ That’s what he had told everyone anyway.

Steve could lie. He could say he was just testing out the ballpoint, seeing if it really is as smooth as Peggy had claimed. He could say that he misses his soulmate, and he does this from time to time as a way to cope with the loss.

But Steve is sick of lying, and he won’t lie to Bucky, not anymore. So he rolls back his sleeve, and shows him the words, written in neat script. The ink flow is very smooth and quick-drying – not even a smudge on his sleeve – truly a marvel of pen engineering.

Bucky’s brow knits together, his mouth set in a frown. “I… I don’t understand. What am I looking at?”

“I don’t have a soulmate, Buck. Never have. I’ve tried everything, and… just nothing,” he says, his voice surprisingly even. “No one has ever written me back. Even my Ma said there wasn’t a mark on me since the day I was born.”

He waits for Bucky to back away from him, from the freak who only ever had half a soul, but the man only pauses, holding tight to the towel around his neck and pulling it taut as he dips his head back to look at the ceiling.

“You, too, huh?”

 _Too?_ But that would imply–

“I thought I was the only one,” Bucky continues, his head falling forward to face Steve once again.

“You? But what about Dotty? You said there was a girl living in Philly… stopped writing almost ten years back.”

“There was no Dotty,” Bucky admits, shrugging. “It’s just… I was ten and everyone else had gotten their marks, and I didn’t want to be the only one who didn’t, and then when I got a little older… it was hard to date with a soulmate supposedly out there, so I just… I don’t know, said she died. It was easier than admitting I’d been lying for six years.”

Now that is something Steve can understand.

“What do you think happened to them?”

“I think they were born first, died, and then we were born. Maybe it happens more often than folks talk about, but life being what it is… what other explanation is there?” He settles down on the bunk next to Steve, facing him.

“It’s kind of sad, isn’t it? To have had one perfect person out there for you, and then to never know a thing about them, to always wonder if they ever existed in the first place,” Steve muses.

But Bucky isn’t having it. “I don’t think it matters as much as you’re making it out to, you know. I’ve met some mighty fine girls, had my heart broken a couple times, too. Not having a soulmate doesn’t mean you’ll never fall in love. It don’t mean you can’t have a full life. Otherwise, what happens to all the soulmates of people who die early? To Peggy and Jim and all of us?”

It’s a fair point, Steve has to admit, but the fact that he and Bucky are two of a kind gives him an idea. “Maybe… I don’t know, but maybe if we both don’t have soulmates – never had one, even – then you and I could…”

“Steve. I’m flattered, but I’m straight,” he deadpans, staring directly at Steve, his expression flat.

Steve snorts. “Soulmates aren’t always like that.”

“You actually believe that line? Soulmates are _always_ like that; even if it’s two fellas.”

“But–” he wants to protest, then he remembers how sheepish Arnie had been when he told Steve about Mikey, how his face had looked when Steve mentioned how amazing it was to have a guaranteed best friend for life…

Steve is such an idiot.

So he changes course. “Okay even if that is the case, it doesn’t have to be like that between us,” _if Bucky doesn’t want to_ – not that Steve would want to, either – he thinks, blushing, “I was just thinking if neither of us has a special person waiting for us, then I don’t know, Buck. Do you want to be alone forever? I’m not talking about sex – don’t give me that look – I’m saying being close with someone and knowing you’ll always have each other’s back, always having someone to fall back on, even when the chips are down.”

“What are you talking about? We’re already that close,” Bucky reaches over to clasp Steve’s shoulder. “You think I’d join this crazy suicide mission for just anyone? I’m with you to the end of the line, pal, soulmate or not.”

And perhaps Bucky is right. Steve doesn’t need a soulmate to feel whole, because what he has with Bucky, with Arnie back home, and even Peggy and the Howling Commandoes… this patchwork family? It’s enough already.

“Thank you, Bucky.”

* * *

It had been enough anyway until Steve watches Bucky fall – watches him die – and his world shatters with him.

* * *

Steve pours himself a drink. He is back in the decimated London bar where he had recruited the Howling Commandoes all those years ago, where he had ultimately signed Bucky’s death warrant. He had thought… Steve isn’t sure what he had thought, but if he could watch Bucky’s back, perhaps they’d both make it through this war in one piece. If only he had known back then the final trajectory of such an action, then maybe he would have…

He knocks back the whiskey and is disappointed when he is still completely, frustratingly sober.

Peggy tries to console him. “It was not your fault.”

“Did you read the reports?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know that’s not true.”

She sighs, but when she speaks, her voice is even, “You did everything you could. Did you believe in your friend? Did you respect him?” Steve did, of course he did. Peggy registers his silent response as the _yes_ that it is. “Then stop blaming yourself. Allow Barnes the dignity of his choice. He damn well must have though you were worth it.”

He vows to go after Schmidt, to take down Hydra if it’s the last thing he does.

Peggy pledges that Steve won’t be alone. Steve pours himself another drink and downs it in one gulp. That’s a lie, but she doesn’t know it yet.

* * *

Schmidt is dead, and Steve is in the cockpit of the Valkyrie headed towards New York City with a payload liable to kill millions. The autopilot is damaged, and he cannot change the trajectory of flight. If he waits too long for Stark to _possibly_ figure out how to save him and he doesn’t, Steve will hit land, and a lot of people will die. He has to take her down right now, while he’s in the middle of nowhere over the Arctic.

“Peggy, this is my choice,” he tells her, echoing what she had told him in the wake of Bucky’s death.

He remembers Bucky and what he had said about making your own happiness; he thinks of Peggy, about how the only thing she ever got from her soulmate wasn’t even a word. He fishes out the pen she had given him, pulls back the uniform over his left forearm and hurriedly writes his final words to his soulmate, the last message he will ever write into the void:

_I love you_

Then, he turns back to the radio, to Peggy. It’s too late now, but then again, Steve’s timing has never been the best. “I’m gonna need a rain check on that dance,” he tells her, tipping the nose downward towards the ocean stretching before him.

“Alright. A week, next Saturday, at the Stork Club,” comes the reply, and Steve can’t tell if it is radio feedback or tears that have subdued her voice.

“You got it.” He allows himself to dream of what could have been: of love and family, of settling down in a quiet house with his wife, a dog, and two children. Sunday dinners. A shared life with someone to hold…

Peggy.

_Please let her be happy. Let them both be._

“Eight o’clock on the dot. Don’t you dare be late. Understood?”

Steve smiles. “You know, I still don’t know how to dance,” he says, staring out into the featureless expanse.

_And now he never will._

“I’ll show you how. Just be there,” she tells him.

The ocean is fast approaching, and the blue is just so deep, the waves cresting white and angry across the top.

Steve doesn’t let up on the controls.

“We’ll have the band play something slow. I’d hate to step on your–”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arnold Roth is 616!Steve’s childhood friend from the comics, and he was essentially Steve’s protective older brother. He used to pull bullies off Steve all the time and even recognized him in the Captain America get-up (during the time his identity is supposed to be secret) even many decades later. He’s also canonically gay, and his boyfriend’s name is Michael (but I don’t think Michael is black in the comics).
> 
> Fountain pens were common in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The concept of the ballpoint pen was invented in the late nineteenth century, but it wasn’t really popularized until Lazlo Biro, a journalist, and his brother Georg, a chemist, designed and patented the first pens in 1938, called Biro pens. Ballpoints were great because they could be used at high altitude without flooding (like a fountain pen would) and could also be used underwater and to write on a variety of surfaces. The British government purchased licensing rights to the ballpoint pens for the Royal Air Force crews before they were more widely distributed through the British military during WWII. I like to imagine Peggy got one for Steve at some point, due to all his time spent jumping out of planes and doing insanely stupid shit. And the fact that the ink was quick-drying and waterproof allowed the message to stay on his arm (un-smudged) long enough for his body to freeze into the Capsicle we all know and love.


	2. I love you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony Stark is born with words on his skin. Always constant and never changing, it’s both a blessing and a curse.

Fifteen-year-old Anthony “Tony” Stark pokes the words written on his left forearm, scratching at the ‘ _you_ ’ with his finger and coming away clean, not that he expected any different. Present since the day he was born, the words might as well be a birthmark.

 _I love you,_ they say, always constant, never changing. _I love you._

He takes out a sharpie, uncapping it with his teeth, and draws a double line through the words, crossing them out.

 _LIAR!!_ he writes underneath in all-caps.

* * *

When Tony had been old enough to understand the words: their meaning both in the literal and figurative sense, he had been overjoyed.

 _They loved you,_ his mother had said before she’d make a sad expression he didn’t quite understand. Love was a good feeling, happy and light, so why did it inspire such poignancy.

It took him longer than it should have to realize that she had used the past-tense. It takes him even longer to figure out why.

_They loved you._

Loved, not love.

Because his soulmate was dead, but in such a way as to preserve their body and the message both. It’s the only explanation, because whatever Tony wrote, whatever questions and pleas and outright demands he made, the message remained the same.

_I love you_

In fast, hurried script, slanted forward, like it had been written in great haste.

Tony had traced the words with his fingertip and wondered about the circumstances surrounding their production. When he had learned about Egyptian and natural mummies, he thought about his soulmate, dying in the desert and exposed to drying elements, their last words written on their left forearm grown withered and desiccated. Or perhaps they were a hardened criminal, whose body was preserved and plasticized for some sort of human body exhibit. Or maybe the patch of skin was all that remained, included in one of several collections of tattoo fragments scattered throughout the world, though the script matched none of those available on microfiche.

Tony had checked.

And rechecked again five years later, just to be sure.

The words, which had served as a comfort in the emotionally barren landscape of his life growing up in the Stark household, had grown into an obsession and then a source of great frustration as he failed to match his mark against any known samples of extant (but preserved) bodies and tattoos.

And so, at fifteen, Tony is done waiting for a dead (wo)man. What does it matter who they were? Tony is never going to get to meet them.

 _I love you,_ it reads clear as day across his arm.

Tony rolls the sleeve over his arm to cover the mark, rubbing the spot as had become his habit, and heads out to his MIT graduation party to meet up with his best friend Rhodey and all the lovely ladies his university has to offer.

His soulmate may be dead, but Tony isn’t.

* * *

Tony has always been precocious, and it’s too dark in the common room for the co-ed he’s chatting up to see just how young he actually is. So, they stumble into a random room together, kissing and falling atop the bed with her hovering over him. She pulls off his shirt but stops when she notices the words written across his arm. Unfortunately, Tony doesn’t notice the change in atmosphere as he comes up to kiss her exposed neck.

“Did she ever respond?” The co-ed asks, clearly indicating his mark.

Tony isn’t quite thinking when he replies honestly, “I didn’t write that.”

Her face twists into a snarl as she pushes him down and dismounts him, heading for the door, picking up her jacket from the floor on the way out.

“What’s wrong, baby,” Tony asks from his seat on the bed, utterly gobsmacked by the turn of events. They were having so much fun, and then–

“You’re an asshole!” she screams. “Your soulmate loves you, and you’re here trying to hook up with me? The fuck is wrong with you!”

“No honey. It’s not like that–”

“Don’t want to hear it. Not getting in the middle of it. I’m out,” she says, slamming the door behind her.

Tony falls back on the bed. He covers his face with his hands, breathes in, and pulls down, stretching out his face and exhaling all the while as he holds in a scream. Cockblocked by a ghost, he can’t even believe it. That shouldn’t be possible.

He holds up his arm, where the offending phrase remains, as clear as the day he was born.

_I love you_

“This is all your fucking fault.”

From then on, Tony is more upfront about the mark. Some of his prospective partners care; many do not. Eventually, he doesn’t take his shirt off for hook-ups unless it’s completely dark, preferring not to deal with the response either way, especially if they are one-night stands. It’s not like he’s cheating on anyone, so he doesn’t view the omission as a big deal…

And then Afghanistan happens, and Tony has all new reasons not to take off his shirt.

Until… Pepper.

Ms. Potts has known him for years. He can trust her with his secrets, with his insecurities and tender bits that underlie the bravado that is _the_ Tony Stark. Pepper loves him, and incredibly, against all odds, he loves her, too.

 _This is enough,_ he thinks, because he needs her, and sometimes he thinks she is the only thing he needs.

 _This is enough,_ he thinks, because he’s never felt this way about anyone before, and he cannot imagine a soul connection being better than this.

 _This is enough,_ he thinks, because it has to be.

“What do you think about us getting matching tattoos?” he asks her one day over breakfast in his expansive modern kitchen. It’s something real soulmates do, if they want tattoos that is: Discuss and come to a consensus of what they want, because whatever it is will be a permanent decision for both of them.

“I think it’s a horrible idea,” she replies before taking a sip of coffee – black, no cream, no sugar, no nonsense. Tony produces enough nonsense for her to chew on during the day as it is.

“Is it though? Think about it: we may not be able to write each other little matching love notes, but we could match each other for once,” he says, rubbing his left forearm as if it aches. “I was thinking left inside forearm right about here. Come on, you know you want to.”

Pepper sighs. “If you want a cover-up tattoo, I’m not going to stop you, but there is no reason I should get one as well,” she explains reasonably.

“Why not? Don’t you want to match me? So we can…” _look like real soulmates,_ he doesn’t have to say.

“Tony, I love you. This… this thing? These marks?” She gently holds his arm, turning it to the side and rolling back the sleeve to reveal the cursed phrase. Tony looks away. “They’re a part of you, a part of your past. Someone loved you, Tony. They loved you so much, it burned into your skin for forty years. I don’t want to replace that, to overwrite it as if it never existed with my own mark. It doesn’t take away from what we have, nor does it mean that what we have isn’t special. But if it’s hurting you to see it… you can get any cover-up tattoo you want.”

“One that matches your new tattoo as well?” Tony tries to negotiate. “It’ll be tasteful. Promise.”

But Pepper can only shakes her head. “No, Tony. I will not be getting a matching tattoo.” And that is final.

He tries not to sulk. He knows it’s unfair to expect Pepper to permanently ink herself to satisfy any niggling doubts of his, but it was worth a try.

Tony rolls his sleeve back down and rubs his forearm over where the mark lies. He watches her put down her mug with a perfect imprint of lipstick on the rim in Iron Man red.

 _I love you,_ he thinks.

_I love you_


	3. Without You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having been found and defrosted by S.H.I.E.L.D., Steve rejoins the world of the living. He looks up old friends and visits Peggy, now an old woman, who inspires him to move on.

66 years.

Steve had missed _66 years_ , a lifetime really.

The first thing he does is look up Arnie. He finds that he and his soulmate Michael Bech had moved to Boston, getting married in 2004 shortly after that sort of thing became legal (and right before their deaths in 2006 and 2009 respectively). Steve supposes Bucky had been right about soulmates after all. He allows himself to feel only a shadow of the immense grief and guilt that he carried regarding the circumstances of his friend’s death before burying it deep, his fists clenched so hard, they ache. He looks up every member of the Howling Commandoes, and with the exception of himself and Bucky, each of them had survived the war, had families and legacies themselves. There was even an entire museum exhibit dedicated to them, for Chrissakes, though he shouldn’t be surprised. Steve is a fossil, an unwanted remnant of a bygone era.

He _belongs_ in a museum.

Leafing through files on his old comrades and friends, seeing decades of their lives pass in a series of yellowed photographs stretching from the time he knew them until their deaths, Steve feels alone, cheated somehow, lost in this future without the benefit of having lived the intervening years.

The world is different. Everything and everyone he knows is gone now, everyone except Peggy, and she…

It hadn’t been too long ago that she was a young and vibrant woman, tough-as-nails with an indomitable spirit. That was always his Peggy. It had been quite a shock the first time he had visited her, homebound and invalid. Yet he can still see that self-same woman even now, in flashes… on her lucid days, anyway. Her eyes sparkle, and her voice is steady, like it has always been.

And her life? She had lived it to the fullest with no regrets – without her soulmate, without Steve – getting married to an American soldier and having two children and five grandchildren. She had been so very happy, and Steve is glad for it. He wanted nothing less for his best girl.

Her only remaining wish is for him to do the same.

“The world has changed, and none of us can go back,” she tells him. “All we can do is our best, and sometimes the best we can do is to start over.”

Steve thinks about all the time he wasted trying to reach his soulmate, who in all likelihood is dead by now. Even if they’re not by some miracle, even if they are still alive like Peggy, they would have lived an entire life with milestones and triumphs and other people to love them. What did he have to offer a soulmate but regret and what-could-have-beens?

No.

It’s better that they never know he is alive – if they ever truly ever existed in the first place, that is. (Steve doubts it; despite what he promises himself, he had checked his body for marks the first two weeks, finding his skin as unblemished as ever.)

Peggy is right. What he needs to do is move on. Start over.

A clean slate.

* * *

The rules are simple.

Switch at the bell.

No touching.

No exchanging of contact information.

No refunds.

Agent Coulson had suggested it. _It will be fun,_ he had said. _No pressure,_ he had said. _It’s a great way to meet new people without letting them know you are_ the _Captain America_ , he had said.

He had believed Agent Coulson, of course. Like an idiot.

And that is how Steve Rogers ended up at a speed-dating event for people over the age of seventy.

Because what the man had failed to disclose is that these things are often grouped by age (though it makes sense in retrospect), so when Steve filled out the registration form, he had been a little too honest with his date of birth.

He almost didn’t make it through the door when the organizers for the event realized how young he is physically-speaking, but some of the ladies behind him had tittered and urged them to allow him admittance.

Steve almost wishes they had refused. It would have spared him the dirty looks those self-same organizers and male participants threw his way.

Steve jumps when a woman named Gladys pinches his ass as he walks by. Fourth time in the last thirty minutes, and he’s pretty sure one of them was the gentleman with the cane who winked in his direction when Steve had reflexively turned to see who had assaulted him. The organizers escort Gladys out of the event, same as the other two who had been caught, so now there’s an extra man in rotation. Steve doesn’t mind sitting by himself for the allotted time slot. He stares at the door for a couple minutes before heading out as well, his ears burning all the while when his exit draws the attention of half the ladies in attendance. He doesn’t even bother to turn in his match card.

One of the younger S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives proposes a different place to meet new people.

“Old man Coulson would suggest something like that. If you want to meet a member of the younger generation, you should go to a club. Great place to meet people,” the twenty-four year old tells him.

“Like Rotary Club?”

“Jesus, man. No. My grandpa used to be in Rotary. I mean like Avant Gardner or Bossa Nova. Go. You’ll thank me later.”

Steve will not be thanking him later, he thinks, while standing in a smoky dance club, the music loud with the bass turned up to thrum through his entire being, shaking him down to his very core. Steve feels almost claustrophobic amongst the press of sweaty, undulating bodies on all sides packed in much too close. He pushes his way to the bathroom, knocking on the door until it opens, spilling out three people from the unisex, single-occupancy toilet.

Despite his enhanced immune system, Steve would rather not touch any potentially-contaminated surfaces inside this night club, much less the bathroom, so he heads back to the Triskelion barracks to turn in early with a nice book and a quiet record warbling in the background. 

Director Nick Fury’s right-hand woman, Maria Hill, recommends a bar.

Steve can’t get drunk, but that doesn’t mean he can’t drink, so he orders their cheapest offering – $6 for a beer on tap; Christ, what is the world coming to – and settles down in a nondescript corner to survey the other patrons. They’re not uniformly too old, nor are they too young. It’s a nice mix of ages. Steve might even feel a little more comfortable here than at the other venues.

It also didn’t hurt that there is a pretty brunette making eyes at him in the corner, wearing dark red lipstick and a tight black dress riding up her shapely thighs.

When he makes eye contact, she saunters over and takes the empty seat next to him. Steve waves over the bartender and pays for another round of whatever she’s having, which turns out to be a $15 cocktail. Steve doesn’t mind, entranced by the playfulness in her dark eyes.

“Haven’t seen you around here before. Are you new in town?” she asks.

“In a matter of speaking,” Steve replies. “Is it really that obvious?”

“You just look a little lonely. I remember being lonely when I first came to the City.” She takes a sip of her fresh drink. “I thought you might like some company. I’m Cherry, by the way.”

“Steve.”

She gives him a considering look. “Hm. You know… I actually believe you.”

“Is Cherry not your real name?”

“Real enough, baby.”

Steve blushes. Before the serum, nobody ever called him 'baby' or looked twice at him – not that he was ever on the market for a special someone – and even after… Peggy had liked him, he is sure of it, but circumstances being what they were, there hadn’t been any time to act on mutual feelings until it was much too late.

“Sorry, I don’t usually do this,” he fumbles, sliding his fingers down his glass and wiping away the condensation to give his jittery hands something to do. Steve isn’t like Bucky; he has no practice flirting with anybody, much less someone as sexy as the woman sitting beside him.

Cherry nods, seeming to take pity on the poor man as she turns to him and offers, “Tell you what. You seem sweet, and you’re much cuter than my regulars, so I’m going to give you a discount. How does that sound, hm?”

“A discount?” Steve repeats, perplexed, his brow drawn together. “On what?”

She smiles. “Whatever you want, baby. I’m full service. But leaving a mark or anything real freaky will be extra, I’m afraid.”

* * *

Steve is walking back home, having refused Cherry’s generous offer. He could have taken a taxi, but with their exorbitant prices, they might as well be highway robbery. Plus, the fresh air will do him some good, help clear his head so to speak.

Perhaps Steve is simply too old to find someone his age. This generation… They’re too young, too loud, too commoditized. He doesn’t understand the rules of engagement anymore – not that he ever did – and he can’t seem to relate to anyone. Even if he could have been happy without his soulmate, with someone else, Steve feels he has already missed his chance.

He passes by a yellow flyer tacked to a public wall, stopping when the title belatedly registers and then backing up to take a closer look.

It’s an advertisement for a grief support group for people who have lost their soulmates.

Steve tears off a tab listing the website and phone number for more information.

* * *

The world may be different, but one thing is unchanged: People still grieve their soulmates.

Granted, it appears to be a much more public process these days. Back in Steve’s day, a man held his grief inside – perhaps only sharing it with a close buddy over a drink – but mostly keeping it squirreled away in some internal compartment deep in his very soul to torment him until the day he died.

In many ways, this new system is much healthier. Steve had to give the future credit where credit is due.

And so, Steve listens to other’s stories, about their loss, about their attempts to move on and their struggles to do so in a world that still (over-)valued the importance of soul bonds in matters of love and happiness.

John lost his husband and soulmate to cancer a couple months before. Linda had lost hers in a car accident. Some, like Steve, had lost theirs before they could meet and always compared subsequent relationships to what could have been.

A few - those who appeared to have been in the group for a while - had even managed to move on, find love again after their soulmate had passed.

“Joey and Emily don’t understand,” Monica is saying. “They’re upset with me for moving on from their father so soon, but it’s been four years, and… well, don’t I deserve to be happy, too? I’ll always love Matt, but that doesn’t mean I can’t love Andy as well. But my kids… they make me feel guilty, like I’m not grieving right or I’m forgetting their father, like I’m betraying my soulmate. I’ve tried to explain that love isn’t a finite resource, that just because I loved their father, it doesn’t mean I can never love again. Love can expand to encompass another. I didn’t love my son any less after I had my daughter, but… I don’t know. It’s hard for them to understand.”

“They’re young still. I’m sure they’ll come around…”

“I just wish they could see that their mother is human, too.”

There is grief here, sharp and overwhelming and acutely devastating, but also hope. Hope that the death of a soulmate isn’t the end if one keeps persevering. Hope that love and contentment is possible, that a person needn’t consign themselves to the mourner’s veil for decades after the untimely passing of a soulmate.

Steve thinks about this as he works over the punching bag in the Triskelion gym. He thinks about all the years he missed out on love, both before the war and when he lay frozen in ice. He thinks of Arnie and Mikey, of Peggy and what could have been, and finally of Bucky, so determined to move on from his anonymous soulmate, to be happy. His friend had been so full of promise when he–

Steve punches the bag off its chain, catapulting it across the room as its innards burst across the floor. He breathes hard, wipes the sweat from his brow, and drags yet another punching bag to hang up and continue his therapy disguised as training.

“Trouble sleeping?” Fury asks, stepping forward from the shadows.

Steve unwraps his fists. “You’re here with a mission, sir?” He wonders why it took so long for Fury to finally approach him. He has been awake for months after all, and the government rarely let their assets lie fallow.

“I am.”

“Trying to get me back in the world?”

 _Good luck,_ he thinks. It’s not like Steve hasn’t been trying to transition back into modern-day society. It is anything but easy.

“Trying to save it,” Fury corrects him.

Steve looks up as the man passes him a mission file. He flips it open to the first page.

_The Avengers Initiative_


	4. Meeting You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony meets Steve on the day aliens fall from the sky several months after Steve rejoins the world of the living. They bicker and fight, even as they’re inexplicably drawn to each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this AU, Pepper and Tony break up at the end of Iron Man 3, circa 2013, when Tony continues to be Iron Man despite Pepper’s reservations. 
> 
> Also, during the Great Depression, PB&Mayo was a very popular sandwich.

Tony barely looks at the words anymore. Hidden underneath dress shirts and jackets, he has little cause to even see his bare arm, not until he strips down at the end of the day to shower before bed. Even then, he doesn’t notice right away, but when he’s lathering up, rubbing his right hand over his left arm, that’s when he finally sees it.

Or rather doesn’t see it.

His soulmark – the one that had plagued him for forty-one years – is gone, leaving behind smooth tanned skin. It’s what he’s wanted for years, decades really. He had written over it, had idly scribbled designs for a cover-up tattoo (and calculated how much it would cost to convince Pepper to go in on a matching set – the verdict: the fee would have bankrupted him). Hell, he had considered laser-removal, and yet, now that its absence has finally come to pass with little fanfare and no effort on his part, Tony finds himself unaccountably bereft.

He leans forward propped up by both hands braced against the shower wall, water sluicing down the back of his head, running rivulets down through his hair and splashing down onto the marble tile. Tony stays like that for several minutes, before snapping his head back to let the water run directly over his face, hiding any evidence of tear tracks.

And when he emerges from the shower, having forgone his silk long-sleeve pajamas for a simple tank top, Pepper takes him into her arms and lets him sob, messy and snot-nosed, into the front of her bathrobe.

* * *

Several months later, Tony meets Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America – his childhood hero before Howard’s obsession with the man had squelched any fond feelings on Tony’s part – under the worst circumstances.

“Fury didn’t tell me he was calling you in,” Cap subtly reprimands him.

If Tony didn’t know any better, he’d say the good captain isn’t pleased to see him, which is ridiculous because A: He just helped him catch the bad guy, and by help, he means he practically did it by himself, and B: Tony is clearly fantastic. But what was it Cap was saying again? Right–

“Yeah, there’s a lot of things Fury doesn’t tell you.”

Their acquaintanceship does not improve upon further exposure to each other.

“Is everything a joke to you?” Steve asks him, clearly exasperated after Tony tried to get Banner to Hulk out with an electric cattle prod delivered to his midsection.

Tony shrugs. “Funny things are.”

“Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn’t funny,” Captain Killjoy points out, before excusing himself to Banner. “No offense, doctor.”

And yet, it manages to devolve further from there.

As S.H.I.E.L.D. and the so-called Avengers argue, Tony drapes an arm around Cap. “Why shouldn’t the guy let off a little steam?” he asks, referring to Banner who has managed to keep his green alter ego under wraps despite escalating tensions.

The man bats off Tony’s touch. “You know damn well why! Back off!”

Not one to do what he’s told, Tony gets right into his face. “Oh, I’m starting to want you to make me.”

But Cap sneers, “Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?”

Tony cants his head to the side, his eyes turned upwards in thought. “Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.” That about covered it.

“I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. Yeah, I’ve seen the footage,” Cap says, looking down his nose at Tony, trying to make him feel small. “The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You’re not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you.”

…Tony has never been one to do as he’s told.

So during the subsequent fight for New York, he flies a missile through a wormhole and saves everyone, nearly dying in the process, but earning Cap’s respect, if not his friendship.

* * *

Tony rebuilds his tower, and hands the keys over to the Avengers. Banner, Cap, and Natasha move into the Avengers common floor below the penthouse suite reserved for Tony and Pepper.

He tries – he really does – but Tony can’t stay in the City. Plagued by nightmares of what he had seen on the other side of the wormhole, of his near death and how vulnerable Earth is, he can barely sleep, spending too many long nights in his personal lab, designing and redesigning suit after suit, going for volume over quality.

Pepper worries. She tries to coax him back to the world of the living, but Tony remains haunted by ghosts only he can see. So she suggests a change of scenery: the Malibu house. It’s not forever, of course, but maybe the warm environment and lack of neighbors will do Tony some good.

That’s the theory anyway.

Tony doesn’t get better. He refuses to get help for his clear case of PTSD and obsesses over his suits, upping his production, missing date nights, even using them to distract Pepper so he can squeeze in another ten minutes of work before she inevitably catches on and gets annoyed.

“You experience things, and then they’re over, and you still can’t explain them. Gods, aliens, other dimensions. I– I’m just a man in a can. The only reason I haven’t cracked up is probably because you moved in. Which is great. I love you. I’m lucky, but honey, I can’t sleep. You go to bed. I come down here. I do what I know: I tinker,” he tells her, pausing to fall into his chair, utterly exhausted. “But threat is imminent, and I have to protect the one thing that I can’t live without. That’s you. My suits, they’re uh…”

“Machines,” Pepper supplies.

“They’re part of me,” Tony insists, but that night, that part of him attacks the woman he loves, forcing him to decommission it. Permanently.

“Don’t go, alright? Pepper?” he begs, crouched over the toppled remains of the Mark 42, his mind racing, still figuring out how to optimize the sensors.

But she has had enough. “I’m going to sleep downstairs. Tinker with that.”

And it only gets worse from there.

Happy’s injuries, his televised threat to the Mandarin, the destruction of his home and their near-death escape, Pepper’s abduction by Killian…

Tony can’t really blame her when he still refuses to give up Iron Man, and she finally ends it.

He wouldn’t want to be with him anymore, either.

* * *

Tony returns to New York, to Avengers Tower, taking up residence in the penthouse suite.

Alone.

He doesn’t talk about the likely-permanent nature of his break-up with Pepper. The others assume it is a lover’s spat, a temporary break, as one would need when their partner is capable of Tony’s dramatics.

So Tony chooses to seal himself away in his labs with his bots, DUM-E and U, the only beings incapable of leaving him, to work on his next suit. He takes his time with this one, carefully upgrading its capabilities to ensure he remains an asset in the field.

Iron Man is the only thing he has left now.

On the second week of his self-imposed exile, there’s a knock at the door.

“Sir, Captain Rogers is requesting access,” J.A.R.V.I.S. informs Tony, when he’s elbow deep in the bowels of his newest suit.

Tony doesn’t even look up. “I’m in the middle of something, J. Tell him to come back later.”

“He claims it is urgent Avengers business, sir. It cannot wait.”

Tony mulls over his decision. If he lets Cap in, then that will require him to wear pants. He ran out of real pants on Wednesday because he neglected to have J.A.R.V.I.S. deliver a clean pair since… he doesn’t remember. That’s probably not a good sign.

“Tell him I’m not decent. And J.A.R.V.I.S.? Get me a pair of pants,” he orders. And with that, Tony cranks up the music and gets back to work.

Thirty minutes later, Cap enters his sanctuary, carrying a sandwich on a tray, a pair of pants draped over one arm, and a sketchbook lodged in his pit. J.A.R.V.I.S. lowers the volume on AC/DC per Cap’s request, which catches Tony’s attention.

He maneuvers behind his worktable to hide his stained sweatpants. He pulls at his shirt and subtly scents the air. Does he smell like he hasn’t showered in three days? Then again, how would Tony know, having been marinating in his own presence for so long?

“You know that’s not what I meant, J.,” Tony complains, a touch self-conscious. He knows he must look terrible. He tries to finger comb his hair, immediately encountering knots, and… is his hair sticking up? Not like in the artfully tousled I-don’t-give-a-damn-but-secretly-I-do way, but in a way that screams ‘I need help’?

Oh God, he looks homeless, doesn’t he? In front of Captain America no less, who is like his boss, but he’s Cap’s landlord and benefactor so he outranks him, right? Right.

“I wasn’t expecting company,” he explains, by way of an excuse.

Cap takes one look at the hot mess that is Tony Stark and says, rather blandly, “I brought you a sandwich.”

“Did J.A.R.V.I.S. put you up to this?” He stares directly into one of his cameras. “Betrayed by my own flesh and blood! J., how could you?”

“It’s tuna,” Cap clarifies, his affect flat as he slides the tray across the work table so it sits at Tony’s elbow.

Tony’s nose twitches at the alluring smell. Now J.A.R.V.I.S. is just playing dirty. It’s not fair, sending him things he can’t resist, like tuna fish sandwiches, clean pants, and Captain America.

_Well played, J._

Tony would be proud if he wasn’t so thoroughly annoyed.

“Back in my day, when someone brought us food, we’d say thank you,” Cap admonishes him, folding his clean pants over the back of an empty chair.

“Thank you for invading my personal space and possibly contaminating my sterile work environment, to bring me food that I didn’t ask for and pants that J. should have delivered through the dumb waiter, as I had originally intended,” Tony deadpans.

Cap raises an eyebrow, giving him an obvious once-over. “Sterile work environment, huh?”

Is that sarcasm he detects? Who would have thought Captain America would turn out to be such a sassy bitch?

So Tony doubles down. “Yes. It was until you broke quarantine.”

“You’re welcome,” and with that, Cap walks back towards the entrance, taking a detour at the last moment to settle down on the futon Tony had taken to sleeping on. Ignoring the likely-overripe stench of human body odor, he opens his sketchbook, taking a pen out of the spiral and clicking it open.

“…What’re you doing?”

“I broke quarantine. I guess that means I should stay until we’re both ready to come out,” Cap says evenly as he begins to draw.

“I don’t need you here.”

The man simply hums, but he’s no longer paying attention to Tony, engrossed in other activities.

Tony returns to his work, absently picking up the sandwich and chewing periodically. The tuna isn’t evenly distributed, mostly lumped in the middle because Cap couldn’t be bothered with optimal sandwich-making techniques, but Tony doesn’t complain. Complaining would require him to acknowledge the elephant in the room, namely Cap himself.

“How’s the sandwich? J.A.R.V.I.S. said it is your favorite.”

Well, if Cap is going to ask… “Kind of lumpy, actually, and too much mayo.”

The man frowns. “What are you talking about? Mayonnaise is delicious. My mom used to make me peanut butter and mayo sandwiches all the time.”

“No offense, Cap. I’m sure your mother was a lovely woman just trying to get by, but _that_ is disgusting.”

“Don’t be a dick.”

It’s going to be a long self-imposed hermitage (for two, apparently).

Because the odd thing is that not only does Cap keep coming back, but J.A.R.V.I.S. continues to let him in, no matter how many times Tony threatens to sell him to Taco Bell, condemning him to a life of taking drunk peoples’ orders for the chain’s ridiculous fourth-meal concept. Though stranger yet, once the man is in, Tony begrudgingly lets him stay. Just one look at those baby blues and how could Tony say no? It’s just not fair how ridiculously attractive Cap is.

It’s probably a good thing the man is straight. Otherwise, there would be nothing stopping Tony from climbing Steve Rogers like the sexy tree he is.

But sometimes – not often, but often enough – Tony thinks he sees Cap looking his way with something akin to interest in his gaze.

God. Tony is obviously hallucinating. He needs sleep.

Which he begins to do with more regularity. Hell, with Cap coming over so predictably, even Tony’s personal hygiene improves. Over time, he begins to look forward to the man’s visits and his culinary experiments.

Steve passes him a plate, which resembles chunky vomit over white bread. “Now try this: It’s creamed chipped beef on toast.”

Tony prods the concoction with a fork, looking up at the chef questioningly.

“It’s better than it looks,” Steve encourages him.

Tony has to admit it smells like food despite appearances, so he takes a tentative bite, chewing thoughtfully then swallowing. “Okay, you got me. This isn’t terrible.”

“High praise,” Steve beams, his smile a mile wide. It reaches his eyes, crinkling them at the corners, and Tony wonders what those eyes would do if he closed the distance between them and kissed that happy grin to share a taste of home cooking with the man himself.

Steve abruptly stops smiling, concern clouding his features as he checks Tony’s forehead for fever. “Are you okay? You look a little warm.”

…Tony is so fucked.


	5. I love you, too

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They may not be soulmates, Tony muses, but they fall in love anyway.

“Hey so… you want to come downstairs for movie night?” Steve offers, getting up from one of the rolling chairs around Tony’s workstation to stretch his back after sitting for so long. “Thor’s back in town and Clint’s girlfriend let him off-leash for the night. There will be snacks.”

Tony looks up from his gauntlet redesign. “Clint has a girlfriend?”

“Or his mother. We’re not sure. He’s surprisingly quiet about his personal life, but he’s always calling to check in with someone before missions. Nat probably knows, but she’s keeping mum on whatever his deal is.”

“Could be a boyfriend,” Tony comments all-too-casually, bracing himself for disappointment if the man turns out to be as homophobic as he suspects, considering when he grew up.

But Steve simply shrugs, completely unfazed. “I guess that’s a possibility as well. You want to put money into the betting pool? Nat’s disqualified, of course, because no one believes she doesn’t know the answer.”

That piques his interest. “There’s a betting pool on the identity of Clint’s mystery friend?”

“There’s a pool on everyone.”

Tony considers it. It’s been ages since he’s seen any of the others, and he could use a break.

“Alright. Lead the way.”

* * *

The elevator doors slide open revealing the open-concept foyer, which boasts a clear view of the sofa pit in the living room where the others have congregated. Banner is the first to spot them.

“So Tony _is_ still alive. Steve wasn’t just making excuses to get away from us,” he announces triumphantly. “Clint, you owe me $20.”

Tony is moderately insulted. “You bet $20 on whether I was alive?” he says, stopping short while Steve continues onward to settle into the closest end seat of the couch next to Thor.

“What? Too morbid.”

“No, you should have gone for $200. Bankrupt the guy betting against me,” Tony says before continuing his trek towards the group. He squeezes in between Steve and Thor, curling up more towards the former. Steve throws his arm around Tony and cradles him close. It means nothing; Tony had seen him do the same with Barnes in many of the Captain America reels he had watched as a child. It is his understanding that men used to be more casually affectionate with their friends. Even so, his heart flutters at the contact.

“Fuck you, Stark. I have more than $200 to my name,” Clint grumbles.

“Now that is truly surprising.” Tony rests his head against Steve’s shoulder. “Pass the popcorn, won’t you?”

Clint flicks a popped kernel at his face, only to have it be caught by Steve who plops it directly into his own mouth. “No food fights,” he orders, “Amelia already has a hard enough job without you adding to it.”

“Amelia?” Tony is unfamiliar with the name.

“Your maid,” Steve replies, having commandeered the popcorn bowl to offer it to the man tucked under his arm. “Nice woman. Has two kids in middle school. One of them plays the trombone in marching band.”

“Ah.” And he’s conscientious, too.

Fuck, why did Steve have to be a frustrating combination of perfect and so goddamn unattainable?

“Are we going to start the movie any time soon, or are you two still playing footsie?” Banner complains.

“Jealous?” Clint cuts in. He leans in conspiratorially to stage-whisper, “If you ask nicely, I’m sure Nat would– Oof!”

Clint may be the marksman, but Natasha is no slouch with a well-aimed pillow to the back of his head. “I agree. Let’s start the movie,” she states, her voice ice-cold and unapologetic when Clint peers over his shoulder, betrayal in his eyes.

Tony can only chuckle, grabbing some popcorn before passing it to the trash compactor that is Thor. It’s odd. Nine months ago, these people couldn’t stand each other, and now they’re all here – willingly, Tony might add – and they have yet to kill each other. They’ve blended well, bickering but fond…

It almost feels like home.

* * *

Tony spends more time on the Avengers common floor after that. Whether he’s sparring with Natasha or tinkering with Bruce while commenting on the application of chemistry to cooking, or gaming with Thor and Clint, Tony keeps busy, and before he knows it, he begins to think of the others as a sort of pseudo-family instead of a bunch of super-powered freeloaders-slash-tax deductions.

Funny how that works.

But mostly, he spends a lot of time helping Steve catch up to the 21st century.

Presently, the man in question stares at his computer screen. “Okay, so… when I ask the Google to find me the best burgers in town, I can’t trust the websites at the top of the list?”

“No. Those are ads, and everyone knows the best burger is from Shake Shack anyway. No frills. No gimmicks. Just quality ingredients and plenty of grease,” Tony leans over his shoulder to operate the touch-screen, scrolling through pictures of the Shackburger. His stomach grumbles, lodging its protest. “You want to go? I could use a cheeseburger right about now.”

But Steve demurs. “Rain check? I have a meeting tonight.”

“A meeting? For what? An Elk Lodge type of deal?”

“It’s a support group.”

Tony is poleaxed at the development. “…Steve, I’m sorry. How long has it been?” His father had been an alcoholic, and Tony himself had…

 _Wait a minute. Cap_ can’t _get drunk._

“Hold on… Are we talking AA or AARP here?” he asks for clarification. Just how much sympathy should Tony allot for this? He only has a limited amount, and most of it goes to dogs with cancer and orphans, also with cancer.

“Grief support group for people who have lost their soulmates.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Boring,” And here he was thinking Steve had a real problem. “You should come with me to get cheeseburgers. Come on, Cap. Who says no to melted cheese? It’s downright un-American.”

“It can be a struggle for some of us,” Steve snips, his brow scrunched in displeasure. “There’s no shame in asking for help.”

Tony holds up his hands in placation. “Didn’t mean to offend, but maybe instead of dwelling on the past, I could take you out for a night on the town instead. Cheer you up, yeah? What do you say?” Then, as if to sweeten the deal, he adds, “I’ve heard my company can be rather tolerable. I have yet to have someone excuse themselves to crawl out the bathroom window.”

“That’s quite the sales pitch you have there.”

“Chance of a lifetime, Cap. I’d say it’s a one-time offer, but we both know that’s a lie,” Tony isn’t about to beg, but he’s not above the occasional guilt trip. “I’ve been cooped up for so long, it might be nice to go out. Stretch my legs a bit, but if you’re too busy to accompany me, I understand,” he scratches the back of his neck, rolling his head around to side-eye his friend.

Steve sighs, “Okay, I’m in. Let’s go.”

* * *

Tony and Steve head out to Shake Shack, but he sends Happy inside to pick up his order while the two of them wait in the car.

Steve raises a brow. “What happened to getting out and stretching your legs for a bit?”

“I don’t do lines,” Tony replies. “And my legs are getting stretched enough as it is.” That’s the thing about limos: endless leg room. “Plus, it’s the first time I’ve gone out since… Well, you know… Pepper. Someone snaps a pic of the two of us, and you can say goodbye to your privacy as you know it.”

“Two friends can’t even go out for a burger these days?”

“Not when one of the friends is me, no,” Tony says, peering out the tinted window. “I shouldn’t have asked you to come. It was selfish of me.”

 _What was Tony thinking bringing Steve along?_ Answer: He wasn’t. He had wanted a burger and had wanted Steve’s company and combined the two desires without any thought of the ramifications to the other party. Tony is always doing selfish things, and now he has practically thrown Steve to the wolves without informing him of the inherent risk in the association.

Steve grasps his shoulder. “It’s not selfish to want to go out with a friend.” He reaches for the door handle.

“Steve, wait!” Tony says, nearly throwing himself across Steve’s torso to stop him. Steve stills. “You don’t understand. If we go out there together, people are going to assume… things. They’ll call you a whore, Steve. An interloper. I can handle it – been dealing with it my whole life – but they’ll hound you for interviews. Pull Pepper into the mix. I don’t want that for either of you.”

“Tony… I’m sure Pepper understands we’re just friends. She trusts you.”

“It’s not her I’m worried about.” It’s National Enquirer, Page Six, Daily Mirror. All the trash rags. They’ll make a mountain out of a mole hill and ruin whatever this is, whatever fledgling something he has with Steve.

But Steve looks sympathetic as he settles back in his seat. “If you aren’t ready to go out, then that’s okay, too. We can just wait in the car for Happy and head back home to the Tower.”

“I think that would be for the best,” and because he convinced Steve cancel plans for this, Tony adds, “and I’m sorry. This isn’t what an evening with the Tony Stark would usually entail.”

“You don’t have to apologize, Tony,” Steve tells him, because he just has to be understanding on top of everything else. “I’m just glad I can be here for you.”

* * *

When they’re back at the Tower, Tony invites Steve up to his penthouse floor. “We didn’t bring Shake Shack for everyone, and I don’t want the others to be jealous,” he says by way of explanation.

Steve is certain they won’t mind missing out on fast food when J.A.R.V.I.S. ordered in from Thor’s favorite steakhouse down the street – he says as much – but he accepts the invitation nonetheless.

At some point, Tony adds some bourbon to his shake and offers a tipple to Steve who politely refuses. It would have been fine had Tony stopped there, but every time he drinks down his milkshake, he decides to refill the paper cup with more bourbon, until the last quarter or so turns out to be approximately 84.7% bourbon (with a calculation error of plus or minus 6.2%, which is higher than normal due to his quickly-dwindling mental faculties).

“And then… well, and then we rebuilt the damn thing on the Great Dome,” Tony slurs, regaling Steve with the time he and Rhodey stole the Dean’s car, painted it to look like campus police and installed realistic lights and sirens, then took it apart and reassembled it on the Great Dome over the course of a single night. In the tradition of great MIT hacks, the installation would have been okay had it not been for the theft of the original vehicle.

“How did you two not get expelled?”

“I took the fall for honeybear, and then dear ol’ Dad bailed me out. Donated a whole new li-berry, named after the ol’ bastard, you know.”

“Your dad must have loved you.”

“You kiddin’? Howard just didn’t want me to embarrass him. Put all his eggs in one basket by stopping at one child, but he never liked dealin’ with kids. And now his only son kicked out’a MIT? What would he have told his ol’ country club buddies then?”

“That his son is too brilliant to languish at school?” Steve tries. “I’m sure he could have thought of something.”

“He never had to, not when he could just throw money at the problem and make it go away just like that,” and it’s a credit to Tony’s coordination that he is able to snap, but Steve isn’t looking at him. He is staring past Tony at something in the far corner, so Tony follows his gaze to a box with _PEPPER_ in large block letters emblazoned on the side in sharpie.

“Last of her stuff. Haven’t had the heart to have Happy deliver it to her office at SI.” Perhaps it had been Tony’s way of holding on, because if she had a pair of shoes and various toiletries still at his house, then she’s not truly gone. It isn’t over.

Tony knows it’s a futile hope, an impossible fantasy, but a man can dream.

“She’ll be back,” Steve tells him, placing a comforting palm on Tony’s shoulder. “You can’t stay mad at your soulmate forever.”

Tony cants his head to the side, his eyes scrunched in confusion. “Pepper isn’t my soulmate,” he admits.

Steve drops his touch. “Oh, I thought… sorry to assume.”

“That’s okay; it’s what the press speculates, and we’ve never denied it. Pepper’s soulmate died a while back – never even met them – and mine was already dead, so… I guess we had that in common.” It hadn’t been a bad starting-off point, before incompatible lifestyles and _irreconcilable differences_ tore them apart.

Steve nods, cupping his milkshake close. “Mine is dead, too, and now…”

 _Now, I’m seventy years too late,_ he doesn’t say.

“I’m sorry,” Tony says, and he sounds sincere. He had known Steve must have lost his soulmate. If the sixty-six year absence didn’t imply the obvious, Steve’s participation in a grief support group for such a loss had made it clear.

“I tried writing to them, all over my body, in different languages and pictures even, but I never got a response.”

_Oh._

Steve had never met his soulmate either.

Now that is something Tony can relate to. “I only ever got one message from mine, and they never responded when I tried to write back,” he divulges.

“What was the message?”

Tony is uncertain how to respond, and when the silence stretches for a touch longer than is comfortable, Steve apologizes, “I’m sorry; that’s too personal.”

Tony swirls his milkshake, which has thinned and gone brown from the added bourbon. “It was a goodbye,” he replies truthfully, his gaze far off and wistful. He takes a sip.

And now Steve seems a touch nervous as he prepares his own goodbye. “So um… It’s getting late. I should head back downstairs.”

“Hm,” Tony hums noncommittally.

But Steve doesn’t move, at least not right away. So Tony, emboldened by the bourbon and a generally cavalier attitude towards such matters, points out, “You don’t have to go.” He casually rests a hand on Steve’s knee.

“Do you want me to stay?”

“Do you want to stay?” Tony counters. He loudly sucks the dregs of his milkshake through his straw while staring intently at the other man.

Steve eyes the dwindling bottle of bourbon. “What is it you want, Tony?” he asks in lieu of a reply.

“I can’t have what I want.”

“Which is?” he presses.

Tony rolls his eyes, retracting his hand but not his offer. “…Don’t you ever get tired of it, Steve? Of being alone? Of being told that your one good shot at happiness is dead, an’ that you will never truly be complete, a half-person?” he says, running his fingers through his hair then back and down his face. “I, for one, think it’s bullshit. Grade A bullshit. They may be dead, but we’re still alive, aren’t we? Don’t we deserve to be happy, too?”

There’s an odd gleam in Steve’s eyes. “Yes, I believe we do. Happiness is possible after a soulmate’s death. Love isn’t a finite resource.”

“Exactly!” Tony agrees before flopping forward to kiss Steve fully. He’s so happy Steve understands, that Steve wants this too, here with him.

Well, Tony is happy for exactly 2.8 seconds until he realizes Steve is sitting stock still, his lips unresponsive to his own. He pulls away, embarrassed to have read the situation wrong. “Um… sorry about that,” he fumbles awkwardly. “I know you probably don’t–”

Steve dips forward, planting his lips on Tony’s and bringing his arms around to cradle him as he deepens their kiss. He tastes of cheeseburgers and vanilla milkshakes and _Steve Steve Steve_ underneath it all.

Give a man like Tony an inch…

He begins to paw at Steve’s shirt, managing to undo a couple buttons, but Steve pushes his hands away. “Tony, we can’t. You’re drunk.” He turns away, shame in his countenance. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have–”

“Drunk nothing. I can pass any field sobriety test you want,” Tony declares before stating in a more serious tone, “I’ve wanted you for forever, Steve.”

Steve looks pensive. “When you say that, do you mean since a while back or indefinitely into the future?”

“Yes.”

Because Tony has always had a crush on Captain America, and since getting to know the man behind the mask, he’s grown rather fond of Steve Rogers as well. He wants Steve, for tonight, for tomorrow, for as long as the man is willing to have him. A future of possibility stretches before the two of them, one without end if Tony has any say in the matter.

He’s leaning on Steve, stroking the broad planes of his chest. “Do you want– I mean… If you want, we could move this to the bedroom?”

Steve sucks in a shuttering breath. “You sure?”

There is nothing he wants more in this life.

So Tony slides (none too gracefully) off his chair, and takes Steve by the hand, leading him into his bedroom. Once there, he pulls Steve down on top of him, laughing softly and trailing kisses down his neck through the open collar of his shirt.

* * *

In the afterglow of his orgasm, Tony stares up at his ceiling, “That was…”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees.

Tony crooks his arm to place a hand behind his head. “I mean… Wow. I’d say that was top twenty, maybe even broke top ten, and I’ve been with Madonna, Steve. I know you probably don’t know who that is, but it was a huge deal in the nineties, and this? This might top that.” He turns his head to face the other man. “C’mon, wasn’t that just the best sex of your life? You can be honest.”

“Yeah, I have to agree with you on that. Definitely the best sex I’ve ever had,” Steve allows, but when Tony gets a stupid grin across his face, he feels the need to add, “But really, that’s not saying much considering it’s the only sex I’ve ever had.”

Tony freezes, his smile grown strained before dropping all together. “…What?” He couldn’t possibly have heard that right. He sits up, rotating his entire body towards Steve. “Are you saying… no way. You’ve got to be fucking with me. Just look at you: You’re sex incarnate. There’s no way you’ve never… Impossible!”

Steve draws his brows together. “Thank you? I think…” He supposes it’s flattering that a man like Tony thinks he has so many viable options, but–

Tony is not done freaking out. “I couldn’t have taken Captain America’s virginity! What the fuck, Steve? How could you not tell me?” He would have done this entirely differently if he had known. For one: there would be candles and music and maybe even rose petals – Steve would have liked something cliché like that – and two: He would have been 100% sober for the event.

“It’s really not a big deal,” he says, sitting up in such a way as to avoid the tenderness in his ass.

“Not a big deal? Not a big deal?!” Tony repeats, throwing up his hands. “You were a virgin, Steve!”

“And now I’m not one!” Steve shoots back, “Honestly, I don’t see what the fuss is about.”

“Wow. You really know how to make a guy feel special.”

“You know what I mean. Everybody always talks about how it’s this earth-shattering, world-shaking experience, and it… it was good,” he looks away and blushes all the way down to his pert nipples.

_Good? Just good?_

“…Take off your pants. I get a do-over,” Tony deadpans, vaguely offended.

But Steve just sighs. “Tony… okay, God’s honest truth is I had a great time – it was amazing, okay? – but I don’t exactly feel different, you know? They always talk about how your first time is like… I don’t know, like there’s this definitive line that separates the before and the after, and once you cross it, then things are never going to be the same again… And, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad we did this–” _I’m glad it was you._ “–but in the end, it’s just sex.”

“…Oh.”

“Really really good sex, but still.”

“Now you’re just trying to fluff up my ego,” Tony grumbles, before reaching out to caress Steve’s cheek. “Are you sure you’re okay? I mean… you put it off ninety-odd years. You must have been waiting for someone special.”

Steve gathers him in his arms, touching their foreheads together. “And you’re telling me _the_ Tony Stark isn’t someone special? You should give yourself a little credit. This was good. You were good.”

It still doesn’t sit well with Tony. Steve deserves romance, damn it, not some drunken, desperate rebound(?) hookup with a known playboy, and Tony is going to give that to him.

He pulls away. “Hey, um… so if you aren’t doing anything Saturday, I was thinking about how you haven’t really seen the City... I mean, there have been a lot of changes since 1945, and with all the new construction since 2012, maybe I’m a little rusty myself.”

The corner of Steve’s mouth tugs up into a cautious half-smile. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. So, I was wondering if you’d like to get some dinner with me, maybe catch a show,” Tony babbles. “Have you been to the MoMA recently? They always have new exhibits, and–”

“I’d love to.”

“It’s a date.”

* * *

Tony waits for Steve, arriving on the Avengers floor five minutes early.

Clint whistles low upon seeing the man, dressed to the nines for the first time since his breakup with Pepper. “You clean up nice. Okay, details. Who asked who out?” he says, “Spill it, man.”

“I did, of course.”

Thor grumbles, passing Natasha a gold coin, the Asgardian equivalent of $50, just as Steve rounds the corner, dressed in khakis and a clean button up.

“Did you bet on which one of us would ask the other out?” Tony asks them, blindly reaching out to interlace his fingers with Steve. “You look amazing, honey,” he tells him, not missing a beat.

“Verily, I did not anticipate Steve Rogers to be so cowardly in romantic pursuits,” Thor complains before addressing the man himself, “I misjudged you, a mistake I assure you I will not repeat in the future.”

“You have clearly not been paying attention the last few months,” Nat tells him, stating the obvious. “Captain America is famously prudish, and Tony is the shameless flirt. He was the one more likely to make the first move.”

“Hey!” Steve protests the assessment at the same time Tony declares it “Fair.”

Tony meets his date’s disapproving glare. “What? She’s got our number. No point denying it.”

“Alright, have fun, you two,” Clint shoos them towards the elevator. “We won’t wait up, and if you feel like sneaking back up to the penthouse suite for a little post-date fun, then trust your instincts. It’s never too soon,” he advises, addressing Steve, “Cap, I’m talking to you specifically when I say this, because Tony already knows this as a manwhore with no standards, but putting out on the first date isn’t only for loose women these days.”

“Clint, you just invalidated the bet,” Nat complains. “No direct intervention. That’s rule #1!”

“Steve is dressed like a Mormon on his first big boy date,” Clint points out, tipping his head towards Steve. “There’s no way Tony is getting lucky tonight, and I’m not losing another twenty bucks to you.”

“New rule: Direct intervention is an automatic forfeit,” she dictates. “Do that again, and you pay everyone twenty bucks.”

Once the elevator doors have closed on the duo, Steve turns to Tony, “So… Clint would have won that bet if he’d kept his mouth shut.”

“No question,” Tony agrees as he watches the elevator descend.

* * *

Tony is in love.

He realizes it when Steve brings him the perfect cup of coffee, made just the way he likes it, just as Tony sets down a lunch for two he made himself: a delicious tuna fish for Tony and two disgusting PB&M sandwiches for Steve (with extra M). He just looks over at Steve, happy and content, kisses him on the cheek, and he just knows. Tony loves him, and he’s pretty sure the feeling is mutual.

So later, when Tony is teaching Steve how to dance a simple four-step ( _1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4_ ), he pops the question.

No, not _that_ question. Baby steps.

“Will you move in with me?”

Steve accepts, and when the Avengers help box up Steve’s stuff for the (short) move upstairs, Tony is borderline offended when no money changes hands.

“What? No one placed a bet on whether Steve would be moving in? Really? No one thought we’d last?” Tony complains. The Avengers are supposed to be their sort-of family, and _all_ of them thought this relationship was a fling. “Oh ye of little faith.”

“No,” Banner tells him, as tapes up a box labeled _Miscellaneous toiletries_. “We all agreed it would happen, but… Price is Right rules: Closest without going over. Nat had the outside bet, but even she pegged it at six months, and it’s been five and a half. So no one wins.”

Nat is boxing up Steve’s books. “For two people who took months to hook up, torturing the rest of us with your indecisiveness, you sure move pretty fast,” she adds. “You couldn’t have waited a couple more weeks, could you?”

* * *

There is only one person left to tell, but Tony has been putting it off, dreading the inevitable. He has J.A.R.V.I.S. patch him through.

“Pepper, how have you been?”

“I’ve been well… Is everything all right?”

Tony sighs. “I didn’t want you to hear it from the National Enquirer first, but um…”

“What did you do this time, Tony?” she asks, her voice already firmly in pre-disappointment mode, and okay, maybe he deserves that, but in all fairness, he hasn’t even done anything. Recently, that is.

 _I’m dating,_ he wants to tell her; _He’s moving in with me,_ but it comes out as: “I fell in love again.”

“Oh… that’s great,” Pepper says, surprised and maybe even a little hurt.

“Is it?”

“Yes,” and this time, she does sound more sincere, even a touch relieved. “I’m happy for you. What’s her name?”

Tony massages his forehead, breathes out slow, then admits: “…Steve.”

“Steve?” She repeats. He can hear the surprise in her voice. “As in Captain America?”

“Yeah…”

She’s silent for a beat, processing the news and perhaps her view on his sexuality (though this can’t come as too much of a shock considering his liaisons with men in the past, which were admittedly fewer than his indiscretions with women). “Does he feel the same way?”

“Yes? Maybe? I don’t know.”

“Tony… please tell me you told him first.”

“…”

“Tony?” she asks, checking if he’s still on the line.

“You’ve given me conflicting parameters. You previously told me to always be honest with you, so–”

“Tony!”

He looks out his expansive window. “Look, I just wanted to give you a heads up before the press catches wind of it, so you don’t get blindsided. So far, I think they think he’s my new personal bodyguard or something on account of how he looks like a narc, even in social situations. The guy is so uptight, he looks like he could open a bottle top with his assh–”

“I don’t need to know,” she deadpans.

“You sure? I have to admit it’s a pretty fantastic a–”

“Is this really a conversation you should be having right now with your most recent ex?”

He scratches the back of his neck. “No… No, you’re right. You’re always right. I’m calling because I asked him to move in with me. He said yes, and… I– I don’t know how much longer I can keep it under wraps. The press… they reported we were soulmates for years, and though we’ve never confirmed or denied the rumors… I just don’t want Steve to be labeled a home wrecker, you know? He’s… Well, he’s not used to the limelight outside the mask. He’s never had to live under a microscope in the Information Age, to have his every move reported on and criticized. I want to protect him” _Like_ _I failed to protect you._ “I know I’m not an easy person to be with, Pepper. I know I screwed us up, and I’m sorry; I really am, but I want to be better for him, so…”

_Help._

“Does he make you happy?”

“Very,” he replies with no hesitation.

“Then I’m happy for you both,” Pepper says, and Tony can tell she means it. “Don’t worry about the press. I’ll handle it.”

“Thanks, Pepper. You’re the best. I mean it.”

* * *

Pepper’s version of ‘handling it’ involves coming out about her new beau: Alexander Skarsgard. The press goes wild for the new couple, and though there is some speculation about Tony’s love life, it is assumed he is doing fine, that his heart was never truly in it as per usual for the callous billionaire.

Tony finds it interesting that both he and Pepper are attracted to tall blonds. He wishes he had known that little tidbit while they were still together, though she probably wouldn’t have been amenable to experimentation.

Truth told, Tony is not sure he would have been up for sharing Pepper anyway… or Steve for that matter. Tony has always been greedy in his personal relationships, emotionally needy and clingy when he really liked someone. Pepper had been a saint, had taught him patience and how to respect boundaries, and he will forever love and be grateful to her for that lesson. Because it means that when Steve pushes back at him for exactly the same set of toxic behaviors, Tony recognizes the pattern that had chipped away at the foundation of his relationship with Pepper. So now, instead of allowing a poor situation to devolve, he takes a step back, re-evaluates the problem, and approaches Steve calmly and more fairly, acknowledging his needs and concerns to come up with a compromise. For his part, Steve relaxes some of his natural stubbornness as well. They both make room for the other and complement each other, both in the field and off.

It’s a healthier dynamic, better than the screaming fights and chronic selfishness that had plagued Tony in the past. And so, as he lies in bed cradling a lightly-snoring Steve, he thinks of the past, the what-ifs, and realizes, soulmate or no, he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.

* * *

“I want you to design a tattoo for me,” Tony tells him one evening over a meal of takeout Chinese.

Steve’s fork stills. “You want me to what?”

Tony plants his chopsticks into the depths of his chow fun and sets it aside. “I’d like to wear your mark.”

Steve looks down into his own takeout box, his fork listlessly prodding the contents as he considers his boyfriend’s request. “You know I can’t get tattoos, right? My body… the ink is broken down and gone within hours. If you get one, then we’ll never match.”

“I know… but maybe, maybe we don’t have to? We’re not soulmates, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have something that identifies me as yours,” Tony tries to explain, but at Steve’s blank stare, he falters. “You know what? Forget I said anything.”

“Do you really want me to design something for you?”

“Not if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“I’ll do it,” Steve says, because it’s Tony’s body, and if a tattoo will make him happy, Steve won’t deny him. “But before you go all in on it, perhaps I can draw it on you first in pen… see if you like it after a week, like a trial run before you really commit to the design.”

“Alright. We could make this a thing. It will be fun. You draw something on me, and I’ll draw something on you. We don’t reveal what either of us drew until the end. We can use the full size mirrors in the bedroom.”

“Can you draw?” Steve asks, skeptically.

“Does it matter? It’s only a week, and I promise: No dicks, nothing sexist, racist, or generally offensive because you will be carrying it around all week. In fact, that’s a rule for both of us. This is a trust fall, Steve. So don’t fail me.”

“I wouldn’t draw a dick or anything like what you listed on you. Who would do that anyways?”

“Someone has obviously never been the first to fall asleep at a party where booze is involved.”

Tony asks J.A.R.V.I.S. to put in an order for a multi-pack of sharpies in various thicknesses and every color imaginable to be delivered within the hour. It gives them time to finish dinner and for Steve to doodle a design in his sketchbook away from prying eyes. And when they receive their order, Tony takes off his shirt and sits backwards in a chair, his arms crossed atop the top rail to form a place to rest his head. He wants the tattoo on his upper back, but besides placement, he is giving Steve full control.

“Trust fall, Steve,” Tony reminds him, tapping his fingers into the crook of his elbow as he waits.

“Yeah, I know. Just trust me, okay?” Steve murmurs, laying out the first lines in thin black sharpie. “And if you don’t like it, I can make adjustments later or design something else entirely. I won’t be offended.”

Tony lets Steve work, watching him pick up the black, red, white, and blue sharpies in turn. He feels the tip of the pen drawing shapes into his back. Several concentric circles and a bunch of smaller objects that could be stars. “Am I about to get an American flag tattoo?” he asks.

“You’ll see,” Steve says, picking up a green sharpie next. “Just sit still.”

“I really hope you’re not copying an Uncle Sam recruitment poster on my back. I’ve always been more of a Rosie the Riveter guy myself.”

“Don’t worry. It’s not permanent,” Steve reiterates.

When Steve is done, he steps back, cocking his head to the side to consider his design.

“You done?”

“Almost.” He picks up the thin black sharpie and scribbles something along the bottom. Did he just sign Tony’s skin, like a canvas? That might be something Tony will want to adjust later. “Okay. I’m done.”

And now it’s Steve’s turn.

Tony picks up the thick black sharpie. “I really hope you’re partial to stick figures,” he jokes as Steve takes off his shirt and turns towards Tony to take his turn in the chair. Tony’s chuckle dies in his throat, his mouth having gone dry, too overwhelmed to say anything further.

Because across Steve’s upper back is an image reminiscent of a 1940s Sailor Jerry-style tattoo of Captain America’s shield in a bed of small flowers, white myrtles and baby blue forget-me-nots and pink arbutus, the sprigs entwined around the shield and tapering off on either side, and centered across the bottom, in old-fashioned script is the message Tony had seen every day of his life for forty-one years. 

Steve looks over his shoulder. “Tony? Is something wrong?” he asks, concern clear on his face.

“…No,” Tony manages, “Nothing is wrong, nothing at all.”

Relieved, Steve faces forward. He crosses his arms over the top rail of the chair, but he lifts his left to run fingers through his hair, his forearm turned towards his face.

“…I’ve got an hypothesis. Just bear with me a minute,” Tony says, uncapping the black sharpie and writing on his own left forearm, over where his soulmark had been so long ago.

“Tony, what–” but there’s something appearing on Steve’s skin, startling him.

_I love you, too._

Written in the familiar black block letters of an engineer.

He twists his entire body around to look at Tony, the sharpie still held to his arm, the message and handwriting matching that on his own arm. Both stare at the other, speechless.

Tony thinks of all the things he’d always wanted to say to his soulmate, of the initial joy of knowing he had someone out there, someone who loved him, later overshadowed by the despair of never knowing who they are or what happened to them, the hardship of growing up alone, and how very happy Tony is to have found someone else despite his loss. As he had grown older and wiser, experienced love himself, Tony had hoped that wherever his soulmate was, whatever had happened to them, they hadn’t lived alone, waiting fruitlessly for him, that they had been happy as well. He had already shared some of these thoughts with Steve.

With his soulmate.

Steve Rogers is his soulmate, and Tony is already in love with him. It changes everything…

And yet, nothing at all.

He has so many things he wants to tell him, so he opens his mouth, ready to explain it all in articulate, signature Tony Stark style.

“Hey.”

_Smooth, Tony._

Steve stands. “Hi,” he replies, and then more eloquently. “It’s you. It’s always been you.”

That snaps Tony out of it. “I’ve been waiting for you my entire life.” He steps forward, arms enveloping Steve who returns his embrace. They’re laughing then crying, and Tony isn’t sure which one of them starts it, but suddenly he’s kissing his soulmate, his fingers tangling in Steve’s hair.

“I love you,” he whispers, like a mantra. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note about the referenced MIT hack: Tony and Rhodey’s prank is a real 1994 MIT hack, with the exception of it being the Dean’s car. I made that part up to make it an expellable offense.
> 
> Note about tattoos: Prior to the 1920s tattoos were mostly for sailors, criminals, and sideshow performers, but with the advent of social security numbers in the 1930s, many “regular” Americans got their SSN tattooed on their body to make it easier to remember. However, it wasn’t until the 1940’s that tattooing came more into vogue with one of the most iconic American tattoo styles (Sailor Jerry: a bright, bold tattoo style that aged fairly well on skin) becoming prominent. I figure Steve must have been somewhat familiar with this style, being in the military at the time. As for the flower symbolism: Forget-me-nots and Arbutus are symbols of love. The Myrtle flower is also a symbol of love and marriage in many cultures: including Greek, British royalty, and Jewish traditions. 
> 
> And finally, this happens before Captain America: Civil War but doesn’t prevent it. In my personal headcanon, Steve still withholds information about Hydra killing his parents from Tony to protect him, and they still disagree on the Accords (just because they’re soulmates doesn’t mean they can’t have differing opinions), and Tony still meets him in Siberia, because ultimately, he does trust Steve and something smells fishy about the whole thing. Like in canon, Steve doesn’t know Bucky was the assassin until he watches the tape with Tony in the Siberian bunker, and Tony tries to kill Bucky. Steve stops him because while he and Tony are soulmates, Bucky is still very important to him. Tony feels extremely betrayed by the one person who was supposed to always have his back, and like in canon, Steve goes on the run and sends Tony the phone to contact him when he needs him. 
> 
> Of course, that’s where my headcanon diverges. With some urging from Bucky, Steve eventually calls Tony, and they find their way back to each other. And though Tony will never truly forgive Bucky for his parents’ deaths, he understands that he wasn’t really at fault, that both he and Bucky are important to Steve, and tolerates their friendship.

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you just tuning in, this fic is by "Anonymous" for now, but will come off anonymous along with all the other lovely creators on March 1, so please stop by the 2020 Cap-IronMan Remix Madness, Remix Exchange, and Remix Relay Collections to see all the Stony fanworks by the Cap-IronMan community.


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